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A breakdown of all the flag colors in the world. Pie-charts show how much each color is used in each flag.
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The motor driven barrels start winding up to speed at the flick of a switch on the handle. Pulling the trigger unleashes a stream of rubber bands, deluging the target. The fire rate is high enough that at least half a dozen bands are in the air at any one time – the gun appears to fire a single very long chain of them. It’s as much like using a hose pipe as firing a rubber band gun. It also sounds fantastic because each mechanism makes a distinct click as it discharges a rubber band.
Push play or go to YouTube. Link -via Cynical-C
Fifteen Reasons Why Mister Rogers was the Best Neighbor Ever lays out a pretty convincing case. For example:
Most people have heard of Koko, the Stanford-educated gorilla who could speak about 1000 words in American Sign Language, and understand about 2000 in English. What most people don’t know, however, is that Koko was an avid Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood fan. As Esquire reported, when Fred Rogers took a trip out to meet Koko for his show, not only did she immediately wrap her arms around him and embrace him, she did what she’d always seen him do onscreen: she proceeded to take his shoes off!
I never watched the show, since I was in school, but now wish I’d known him. Link
Found at The Orgonon Trail
Recently, we had an article on Neatorama regarding conspiracy theories surrounding Pearl Harbor.
Apparently, we were wrong: this is what truly happened there: Nazi Robot Attack (as animated by Marco Spitoni of Cee Gee): Link – via Techno Yid
The Boomer Chronicle has a series of short articles titled Aging and Our Senses – here’s what you have to look forward to about your sense of taste:
Our approximately 9,000 taste buds begin to decrease in number beginning at about age 40 to 50 in women and at 50 to 60 in men.
And even the remaining taste buds begin to fall apart.
In addition, your mouth produces less saliva as you age, which makes it difficult for the brain to recognize taste.
But don’t despair. The sensitivity to the various taste sensations (salty, sweet, bitter, sour, umami) does not seem to decrease until after age 60, if at all.
If taste sensation is lost, usually salty and sweet tastes are lost first, with bitter and sour tastes lasting slightly longer.
Read the rest of the articles: Hearing, Sight, Smell, Taste, and Touch.
Here are some rockin’ webcomics from Carl Huber of the WAREHOUSE (This one is called Medusa’s Secret): Link
Glenn Wolsey has a neat list of the Top 10 Multiple Display Mac Setups. Those cinema displays are gorgeous! Link – via Gears and Widgets
Oh yeah! The Bluesmobile [wiki] is alive and well! Here’s one spotted by Dave Thornton: Link
Here’s one of the best short films (10 min.) ever made: The Bloody Olive (1996) by Vincent Bal. Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – via Sum Res Cogitans
For just $18 you can get 3 stainless steel mess tray, so you can eat just like at boot camp (or prison – wait, do prisoners eat from steel trays?)
Link – via The Windowshoppist
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* Buy good quality, thick-sliced bacon.
* Prepare the brown sugar and cayenne pepper topping.
* Arrange bacon on a broiler pan.
* Cook for 20 minutes at 300-350°F.
* Turn bacon, apply topping, and cook another 20-30 minutes or until done.
Link -via J-Walk Blog
I came to think of this video clip when I saw Miss Cellania’s recent Leopard in the Bed entry.
Link [YouTube]
Clad only in his night clothes, Arthur Du Mosch lunged at the big cat and grabbed its neck, pinning it down for 20 minutes until help arrived.
“This kind of thing doesn’t happen every day,” the 49-year-old said. “I wasn’t thinking, I just acted.”
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Swim at Your Own Risk is a blog detailing shark attacks, attacks by other marine animals, and generally all the awful things that might happen to you at the beach. Although the odds of attack for each beachgoer are very low (you’d more likely be killed by lightning), this site could be useful for persuading your family to go camping in the mountains. Link -via Grow-A-Brain
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As long as there have been criminals, there have been governments thinking up novel ways to execute ‘em. We don’t know which of the following gruesome methods the Founding Fathers had in mind with that whole ban on "cruel and unusual punishment," but we know they had plenty to choose from. Method: Crushing by Elephant
Pachyderms aren’t natural-born killers. However, with a little training (often involving practice coconuts), they’ll gladly stomp on the head of a criminal. The ancient ritual, which spread nearly everywhere elephants were found, was still in use as recently as the early years of British colonization. Crushings were usually public spectacles administered by abnormally large elephants – just in case the audience didn’t find the sight of an angry Dumbo squashing a human head scary enough. Method: Crucifixion
Although forever associated with one particular execution, crucifixion was the capital punishment method of choice in much of the ancient world. Marcus Licinius Crassus probably set the all-time record for crucifixions when, after defeating Spartacus in 71 B.C.E., he had an estimated 6,000 of the gladiator’s rebel slaves crucified along the Appian Way. Roman emperor Constantine the Great banned the practice in 337 C.E., but it cropped up again in the 16th century, in such places as Japan and Mexico. Today, Catholics in Iztapalapa, Mexico, crucify themselves annually as a devotional practice, removing the nails before the fatal damage is inflicted. Method: The Brazen Bull
Legend has it that a reed-based acoustic mechanism made the victims’ screams sound like a bull’s bellow, while the smoke from inside blew out its nose. As for Phalaris, he eventually got an inside look at his own device when he was overthrown by Telemachus and became the bull’s next meal. (Image Credit: Medievality) Method: Ling Chi
[Note: Image from a film by Taiwanese artist Chen Chiej-jen called Lingchi - Echoes of a Historical Photograph, interesting article in Taipei Times (warning: gruesome images)] Method: Cave of Roses Snakes in a cave! Part execution, part nightmare, the Cave of Roses required locking victims in a dark cave filled with a smorgasbord of venomous creatures and other unpleasant creatures. With no way to escape and no way to see, the condemned knew it was only a matter of time before their movements provoked some creepy crawly to deliver a fatal bite. The Cave of Roses was finally abolished in 1772, and fortunately, Sweden grew a lot more enlightened with time. Exactly 200 years later, it became one of the first major European nations to ban the death penalty completely. Method: Keelhauling
Man overboard! A punishment specific to sailors, keelhauling meant tying a man with rope, dropping him off the front of a ship, then dragging him "across the keel" from bow to stern. A long haul took several minutes, during which time the victim would drown (though being dragged along the barnacle-covered hull certainly facilitated things). Shorter hauls, conducted for less severe crimes, left sailors scarred but alive – a practice that became popular with pirates as well as government navies. Method: Spanish Donkey (or Wooden Horse)
Used both for torture and execution, the donkey was a big hit in the Spanish military. A naked victim was forced to straddle the apparatus, which was basically a vertical wood board with a sharp V-shape wedge on top. Weights were attached to the offenders’ ankles or feet, pulling them down onto the sturdy wedge until the victims split in two. Despite the name no (non-human) animals were harmed in the making of this device. Method: Guillotine
Dr. Joseph Ignace Guillotin (who lent his name to, but didn’t invent, the contraption) was actually an anti-death-penalty activist who suggested it as a more "humane" form of execution. And he was right – to a point. While it was France’s last form of capital punishment, "last" didn’t come until 1977. |
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The article above is reprinted with permission from mental_floss magazine (Jan-Feb 2007 issue). Don’t forget to feed your brain, subscribe to the magazine and visit mental_floss‘ extremely entertaining website and blog!
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Granite Reflection
A World Unsubmerged
Devil’s Golfcourse, Death Valley National Park, California
Steve Sieren has a fantastic portfolio of landscape (and other) photography. I absolutely love the sets from the California Coastline, Mountain Gold, and Desolate Desert.
Definitely worth a look see: Link – Thanks Steve!
Here’s another magic trick: how to produce smoke just by rubbing two fingers together.
Link [metacafe] – Thanks Holly H.!
Here’s the best Lord of the Rings re-creation ever: The Muppet Show in Ham’s Deep!
Whenever I’m in Toronto, I try to duck down to Queen Street West for a visit to The Silver Snail, one of the coolest comic book and collectible stores around. They frequently dress up the front windows with displays and last year achieved what I felt was the pinnacle of the craft; an impressively detailed recreation of the battle for Helm’s Deep from the Lord of The Rings -using Muppet Show action figures.
Hundreds of penguins in place of attacking orcs, Sweetums as Gandalf, Beaker in full battle armor… It was an elaborate display of slightly twisted imagination, creativity and skilled model building.
Link | Article at Geekdad – Thanks Lee!
Here’s a magic trick you can learn: the Cardini Single Production, or how to conjure up cards from thin air!
(Warning: magic spoiler – something gets lost when you figure out the trick behind the magic) Link [Metacafe] – Thanks Freshome
From Washington Post:
ON A WARM AND RAINY THURSDAY EVENING IN JULY 1941, inside a War Department office in Washington, a small group of Army officers hastily assembled for a meeting and listened in disbelief to the secret plan outlined by their commander.
What’s the secret plan? The largest office building in the world: The Pentagon.
Here’s the story: Link | Photo Gallery (How The Pentagon Got Its Shape) – Thanks Mikolka!
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More than fifty years ago, a volcano in the Mexican state of Michoacan suddenly rose from the ground and buried two villages under lava and ashes.
Today, the only trace of the villages is the church tower of San Juan Parangaricutiro, the church that rises above a field of black lava: Link – Thanks aberron!
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This hexagonal clay prism (often called the Taylor prism) records the deeds of the Assyrian king, Sennacherib, c. 689 BCE. Sennacherib was an important figure in the Old Testament and is mentioned in II Kings. (I saw this piece when I was at the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute on Saturday but wasn’t able to get a good photo. Fortunately you can find just about anything on the internet.) Here’s the commentary from the Oriental Institute:
On the six inscribed sides of this clay prism, King Sennacherib
recorded eight military campaigns undertaken against various peoples
who refused to submit to Assyrian domination. In all instances, he
claims to have been victorious. As part of the third campaign, he
beseiged Jerusalem and imposed heavy tribute on Hezekiah, King of
Judah-a story also related in the Bible, where Sennacherib is said to
have been defeated by "the angel of the Lord," who slew 185,000
Assyrian soldiers (II Kings 18-19).
There is a complete translation of all six columns at the Sennacherib Prism site where I found the photo. And here is Byron’s poem, "The Destruction of Sennacherib," to complement it:
The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen:
Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still.And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,
But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride:
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail;
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpets unblown.And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!– George Gordon Lord Byron (1788-1824)
It is unclear what actually caused Sennacherib to lift the siege of Jerusalem, but illness within the camp may have had at least something to do with his decision. Besieging armies throughout history have been beset by disease as a result of poor sanitary conditions and close quarters.
The ballot text reads “Do you agree with the reunification of Austria with the German Empire that was enacted on 13 March 1938, and do you vote for the party of our leader Adolf Hitler?,” the large circle is labelled “Yes,” the smaller “No.”
Wade Meredith of Healthbolt has a neat list of 26 cognitive biases – basically ways our minds distort our views of reality (or why what you think is right is actually wrong!)
For example:
1. Bandwagon effect – the tendency to do (or believe) things because many other people do (or believe) the same. Related to groupthink, herd behaviour, and manias. Carl Jung pioneered the idea of the collective unconscious which is considered by Jungian psychologists to be responsible for this cognitive bias.
2. Bias blind spot – the tendency not to compensate for one’s own cognitive biases.
3. Choice-supportive bias – the tendency to remember one’s choices as better than they actually were.
Link – via Beautiful English Online
Neighbors were completely surprised to learn that when modest-living Hector Guy Di Stefano and his wife Doris died, they left a $264 million estate to be divided equally among 8 charities, among them them the Salvation Army [wiki] and Greenpeace [wiki].
But there was a snag: the couple left the money to Greenpeace International Inc., but before they died, Greenpeace International Inc. was dissolved and absorbed into a larger outfit, Greenpeace Fund. All of the charities had no problem with this technicality (after all, they weren’t expecting any money – the Di Stefanos didn’t tell them beforehand). All, except for one: the Salvation Army.
Apparently, $33 million wasn’t enough for the Salvation Army – it sued to prevent Greenpeace from its share of the bequest, arguing that the entity the Di Stefanos had left money to no longer existed and that the money should instead be divided equally amongst the remaining 7 charities! The rest of the charities stood to gain an extra $6 million, but no one wanted to come near Salvation Army’s lawsuit.
Earlier this May, the Salvation Army and Greenpeace settled their lawsuit: it seems like the Salvation Army will get the $6 million extra share of Greenpeace’s slice of money, while Greenpeace will still get about $27 million.
Ain’t that a crazy story?
Links: Seattle Times | LA Times articles – via Don’t Tell the Donor
Here’s a tale of toddler behaving badly: It took a group of 10 Buddhist monks a whole week to create an intricate sand art. They were half done, that is, until a two-year-old toddler arrived!
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube]
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An idea worthy of a Bond villain, the tactic involved shutting victims inside the belly of a hollow, life-size brass bull and lighting a fire below it, essentially turning the apparatus into an oven. 
Outlawed in 1905, the Chinese practice known as "death by a thousand cuts" involved binding a victim to a pole and carving into his or her arms, torso, and legs. Strangely enough, while "ling chi" translates to "degrading and slow," it’s also the name of a fungus known as "the mushroom of immortality."
Believe it or not, this menacing machine was created as a way of making executions less painful. 
